


White Noise

by Enigel



Category: Heroes (TV)
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, between character study and navel-gazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 02:45:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enigel/pseuds/Enigel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for Greensilver in the Yuletide 2006 Challenge</p>
    </blockquote>





	White Noise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Greensilver (Trelkez)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trelkez/gifts).



> Written for Greensilver in the Yuletide 2006 Challenge

After Peter is done with the painting, when his freakish white eyes close (is this how I look too, wonders Isaac, and it must be so) and the vision or whatever this is loses its hold on him, Isaac catches him before he could hit the floor. Isaac is way too familiar with the feeling of waking up on a cold, hard surface, so he takes pity on Peter despite his feeling of annoyance.

He can't explain it. The guy took his girlfriend, sure, but she didn't leave him because of Peter. It would be a good reason to be annoyed, though, but it's not that.

Isaac half-carries, half-drags Peter to a couch, and nervously pushes away the clutter on it to make room. Then he wraps the blanket around himself again and paces.

Now Peter can do what he does, paint the future, and this is another potential reason, but it's not it. This is too big, too important.

Peter can do it without shooting up, and that's probably the most unnerving aspect.

Isaac has tried, despite the general opinion, but no matter how hard he tries, how much he stares into the white canvas... nothing. Painters, like writers, share a phobia of a big white surface. It's there, looking at him as he looks at it, into him, like the proverbial abyss. It's up to him to fill it, transform it, make the white space shut up and speak for him instead.

He suspects, no, he knows that's what drives many of them to alcohol, drugs, anything to gain an advantage over the white void.

Isaac has given himself over to the drugs and the white was filled, conquered by a violent imagery, explosive reds and oranges and harsh lines. Most of them, he's always felt, don't even stem from him, and some paintings in particular. (Like the one with the blonde woman in a blue dress, that devastating painting that Isaac can never forget. He tries not to think about her, but she's there every time he looks at a painting and wonders about its place in the puzzle, and she's there every time he looks at a blank canvas and wonders what will appear on that one, whose death will he foretell next.)

Peter stirs and Isaac turns to him, startled.

"Did it work?" is Peter's first question.

"See for yourself," Isaac answers grimly, and they both stare at the finished canvas, dripping with paint like blood. Another death omen, and Isaac knows they have to stop this. This blonde girl has to live.

"This is not about being a painter anymore," Isaac finds himself saying.

Peter has no white surface anguish. He's concerned about this girl, the cheerleader, and about the world. The apocalypse on the floor.

"How did you do it?" Isaac asks with clinical interest.

"I, I don't know. I just... let go, I guess. Let it take me."

"Do you remember how it felt?"

"No, I... The last thing I remember is glimpsing something, shapes and colors, and knowing I could finish it. Then I woke up on the couch."

"Yeah, welcome to my life," Isaac says with a small bitter smile.

***

The next day there's no more rain, but it isn't sunny and bright either. The sky is like a big grey canvas. It's the kind of day that makes Isaac feels restless and undecided. He still has no money and no "painting supplies," not the kind that he needs.

He grabs a random notebook and starts sketching something, anything, to pass the time. He imagines Peter is trying to obtain the missing panel from Simone. He also figures it would work better without his interference, so he doesn't call.

He finds himself sketching a young man's face, very similar to Peter's. ("Why would I paint you?" It was a lie, and he almost laughs remembering his sulky tone. Why not? No subject is stranger to art, and Peter has an interesting face, a mixture of softness and sharp lines.)

He doesn't expect it to show the future, or so Isaac tells himself, tries not to let himself hope that he can do it, that he can paint something prophetic while sober. (_Too_ sober, too suddenly, he thinks, it makes him morose and jittery. But it's just the first phase, soon enough he's going to get inventive about borrowing money.)

He wants to draw Peter focused, intent, like he looked when he was trying to convince Isaac that they're meant to save the world together. His hands are shaking, and a stroke of the pencil goes astray here, another there, and they lend Peter's face an expression of cunning, of slyness. It looks out of place on the nurse's face, Isaac thinks. Like he'd look when blackmailing someone. Nonsense. He throws the notebook away, just as he hears someone at the door. He hopes it's not another fan trying to question him about the hidden depths of his art. (Or someone he painted dying, the thought sneaks uninvited.) She might lend him some money, though.

Isaac goes to the door.

***

"We failed, then."

The blonde girl has died after all. Isaac paces through his studio. Hiro looks miserable himself, while his friend glares at him. It's obvious they've had this conversation before and Isaac has reopened some wounds, but it hit Isaac in a way it hadn't when Eden had brought him the good news - Claire was safe.

She'd failed to mention the other girl, in that way she brushed aside facts she didn't want to bring up. Eden has set him free, though, free to pursue this, and now Isaac's old doubts resurface.

"You must do more paintings, Mr. Isaac," Hiro says. "You must try."

Hiro insists he must concentrate, and seeing his round, scrunched-up face, Isaac suddenly remembers Peter and his willingness, his calm surrender. He closes his eyes and lets go, and the next thing he knows he's still standing, albeit supported by a concerned-looking Hiro and an even more worried-looking Ando, and facing the vivid image of an unlikely dinosaur.

The cause for his Japanese friends' alarm becomes apparent, as the man confronting the beast seems to be Hiro himself.

"Hiro, everything that I painted and was able to verify has come true."

Hiro sighs and mutters something Isaac doesn't get.

"He must find that sword. Peter Petrelli saw future Hiro with a sword, too," Ando supplies helpfully.

"That's not all. Hiro, Ando, what if everything does come true? Regardless of what we do? I thought we could stop it, but what if the dead girl has been this other girl all along?"

Hiro's mouth rounds in a "O" as he gets what Isaac is saying.

"Noo, we must stop bomb! If bomb goes boom, nothing is left. We must stop it, at any costs."

Hiro's way of saying the words makes them sound even more definitive and ominous.

"What if we can't?" Isaac's looking down at the floor, where the mural used to be. "What if this is it, and we only get an advance notice?"

"A hero must not lose hope. If we not change things, it is for nothing. I believe we have mission."

"You sound like Peter," smiles Isaac.

"Peter Petrelli is a true hero."

"I know," says Isaac and looks out the window. Peter's also in a hospital, unconscious.

***

"You saved her," Isaac tells Peter. "Well, one of them."

Peter's still weak, still having trouble focusing; he runs his hand through his hair and rubs his temples.

"It was just like in your paintings," he says tiredly.

"Did you die too, Peter, like in my painting?"

"I guess," Peter says with a shy, self-deprecating smile.

"You were right. I can paint the future without drugs."

"That's great! That's great, man. I guess this means you don't need me around anymore."

"You should come by anyway. I have to show you my newest drawings. There's one of an exploding man. It's a real blast."

Peter laughs openly now, and then turns whiter and whiter, his face is like a radiant light, until Isaac wakes up gasping.

The dream felt so real, he has to check he's still in his bed, and there's no drug paraphernalia around. This is something new and Isaac rubs his eyes.

His dream self hasn't lied, he'd like for Peter to visit him, whenever he gets out of the hospital. Somehow mentioning the exploding man doesn't seem like such a good idea, but you can't control dreams.

Around noon he receives a phone call from Simone. Peter has woken up from the coma; they'll keep him for some more tests, but he's awake and he wants to talk to Isaac.


End file.
